My stars

The danger of posting something and saying, "Wow, how ridiculous is this claim?" is that my loyal readers take that as some kind of challenge, and I immediately get inundated with responses to the effect of, "You think that's weird, wait till you see this."

Now, don't misunderstand me; I love getting suggestions from my readers.  But it's a little disheartening to find out that however low my opinion of the collective intelligence of humanity gets, I still haven't struck the bottom.

Yesterday's post, about mysterious antennas appearing on public lands in Utah and people concluding (amongst other things) that they're being used by evil masterminds to control the weather, prompted a reader to respond, "Maybe all those antennas are just a way of jump-starting your DNA," along with a link to a site called "Starseed DNA Activation" that makes the weather modification people sound like Nobel laureates.

The "Starseed" thing sounded familiar to me, and after a little searching of the archives I found that I had indeed written something about this idea way back in 2011.  A Starseed, it turns out, is a person who thinks they're from another star system.  Some people think it's just their soul that's alien; others think they're literal, physical alien/human hybrids.  But the website the reader sent me yesterday goes way beyond that.

First, we learn how to tell if we're Starseeds, which of course I was curious to find out.  Here are the questions, along with my answers:

1. Do you feel disconnected from the people around you?  Given the fact that I raise social awkwardness to the level of performance art, that'd be a yes for me.
2. Does the general pattern of behavior in society not resonate with its essence?  I don't know if that one applies to me, because frankly, I can't figure out what the fuck the question even means.
3. Do the complexities of society, such as economics, cultural norms, conventional education, and religion seem foreign to you?  I think anyone who knows me would give me a thumbs-up on that one.
4. Do you have problems with authority figures?  That's another clear yes.  I've always felt like respect had to be earned, which is why my stint in Catholic school was short and unpleasant for all involved.
5. Do you have a deep interest in unusual subjects?  Cf. this entire damn blog.
6. Are you highly creative?  Given that I'm a novelist, musician, and sculptor...
7. Are you empathetic?  Definite yes on that one.
8. Do you understand that you had past lives not on this Earth?  Okay, here we're on shakier ground.  Hell, I thought that's what this test was intended to find out.  Or maybe I'm not understanding.
9. Do you have intense psychic and paranormal experiences?  Big nope on that one.
10. Do you have "crystalline DNA symptoms" -- ear popping, lucid dreaming, major chakras tingling, lightness in limbs?  Well, my ears pop sometimes, but probably no more than ordinary.  I've never lucid dreamed.  My limbs feel pretty ordinary, and I'm not sure I'd recognize a "tingling chakra" if it walked up and bit me on the ass.

So that's six "yes," three "no," and one "what the hell does that even mean?"  So clearly I'm a Starseed.  Cool beans.

Then we find out there are three different brands of Starseeds: "Sirian Starseeds" (characteristics: highly evolved spiritually, empathetic, spiritual leaders, enjoy the ocean), "Orion Starseeds" (characteristics: thorny relationships, sensitive, introverted, like to know stuff), and "Andromedan Starseeds" (characteristics: like to travel, flighty, late all the time, can get defensive).  What's funniest about this is the "Sirians" are supposedly from the system around the star Sirius (which is at least theoretically possible), while the "Orions" are from the whole constellation of Orion (even though it's made up of a bunch of separate stars all at huge distances from each other), and the "Andromedans" are from the entire fucking galaxy of Andromeda.  How you could be from a whole galaxy is never explained.  Maybe you have to be "highly evolved" to understand.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Salma2789, Spirit man, CC BY-SA 4.0]

Then we learn about evil beings called "organic portals" and "Archons" who are parasitic on the Starseeds and try to suck away their energy.  This made me think of the character of Colin Robinson, the "energy vampire" on the show What We Do In the Shadows, and that mental image made me take this website even less seriously.

Then we get into the "jump-starting your DNA" part.  I would try to paraphrase, but this whole section was so weird I just know you would think I'm making it up, so instead here is a direct quote on the topic:

In the eyes of the microscope, scientists discovered that there is a part of the DNA that is not visible.  Barely 3% is visible and is possible to be explored through science.  But 97% scientists classify it as junk or random material, which is the part of the non-visible DNA.  However, from the energetic eyes we perceive what this invisible part of DNA is and how to work it.

In this invisible DNA there is a lot of information that is part of our unconscious, of our ancestral memory and that has all the information of our experiences, our lives, our cycles, our egos, the fractals that are in other dimensions and everything we can experience as beings with soul.

And supposedly if you "open your heart and let the light frequencies in," you can awaken this 97% of your DNA that scientists apparently discovered by looking through a microscope, seeing nothing, and saying, "Hey, get a load of this!  I'm looking at invisible DNA, here!"

At this point, my brain went on strike and told me if I wanted to pursue this topic any further I was on my own and could fucking well go on without it.  So I decided to stop there.  But what I read was enough to cause me to bow down in awe to my loyal reader's bold claim that yes, there is something loonier than claiming random antennas in Utah are part of a 5G mind-control device.

But now that I've confirmed I'm a Starseed, I need to give some thought to what kind I am.  I'm thinking "Orion."  I definitely am not "Andromedan" because I hate being late, and the "Sirians" seem a little full of themselves, frankly.  I'm a little concerned about the "thorny relationships" part, but thus far Carol still puts up with me, so I guess I'm okay for the time being.

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The extraterrestrial pantheon

One of the things that perplexes me about woo-woo beliefs is how specific they can get.

You don't just think there's an afterlife, you have intricate details about what heaven and hell are like.  You're not just superstitious, you think putting an acorn in your window will keep your house from getting struck by lightning. You don't just have a belief that the positions of the stars and planets control your life, you believe that people who were born when Mars is in Aquarius tend to like phone sex.  (I'm not making this up.)

So I'm left thinking, "How do they know all of this?"  I can understand being generally prone to goofy beliefs; it's amazing what a combination of confirmation bias and wishful thinking will do.  What I don't understand is how you get from generalized woo-woo to having access to minuscule details.

Take, for example, the website that I was sent a couple of days ago by a reader of Skeptophilia.  Accompanied by a note that said, "Bet you thought there was just one!", I was given a link to site called "The Six Alien Species Currently Fighting for Control Over Earth," in which we find out that Earth is apparently the prize in a six-way extraterrestrial game of "Risk."

First, we have the Sirians, who supposedly helped the Egyptians and Mayans build the pyramids, and were also in contact with the "Atlanteans."  Because, you know, there's nothing like bringing in a fictional civilization to beef up your claims that Earth has been visited by aliens.  The Sirians, we hear, are a highly technological civilization that comes from "the Sirius B star system."

You'd think the "highly technological" part would be obvious, right?  I mean, if they've come here from Sirius, 8.6 light years away, they're not traveling in a horse-and-buggy.  But there's a problem with a civilization coming from Sirius B; Sirius B is a white dwarf, meaning that it is a stellar remnant left behind after the calamitous death of a red giant star.  Any planets that orbited Sirius B were fried long ago, and the tiny star left behind is of low enough luminosity that there's no way it would warm a planet's surface enough to sustain life, even if any life survived the initial cataclysm.

But we won't let little things like facts interfere.  Let's find out about the five other alien species, shall we?

Next we have the "Short Grays," made famous in the historical documentary Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and which are also known as "Zeta Reticulums."  Evidently because that's the star system they come from.  They are "the authors of most alien abductions" and have "telepathic abilities (that) allow them to constitute a type of hive mind consciousness."

Then we have the "Tall Grays," who of course are more powerful than the "Short Grays," presumably because they're taller.  They are "the ambassadors of most meetings between human and alien forces" and "are keen on developing a stable human-gray hybrid race," which I'm hoping that they're doing by genetic manipulation, because otherwise we're talking hot human/Tall Gray sex, and as open-minded as I like to think I am, that's just creepy.

Next, there's the Reptilians, who come from Alpha Draconis, in the constellation of Draco the Dragon.  Of course.  Because what a group of stars looked like to a bunch of ancient Greeks who had been hitting the ouzo clearly would affect the kinds of life that would evolve on the planets orbiting those stars.  Be that as it may, the Alpha Draconians are "14 to 22 feet tall... (w)eighing an estimated 1,800 pounds."  Which is pretty badass.  Also, they have "tails, or even wings," which makes me wonder if the author has actually seen one.  Because you'd think you would be clear on that point, right?

Then there are the "Native Reptilians."  Here's where things get even more confusing, because apparently these are shape-shifting scaly dudes who "have infiltrated almost all aspects of human life and hold positions of power," and "built the financial system and influence all religions."  But if they're natives to Earth, then they're not aliens, right?

Cf. what I said earlier about not letting facts get in the way.

Lastly, we have the Annunaki, who come from a galaxy they call "Illyuwn."  They're the ones who created us, apparently; "through genetic manipulation and in vitro fertilization," we're told, "they upgraded the genus Homo to sapiens quality."

Well, all I can say is, they did a pretty piss-poor job.  If a super-powerful alien species altered our DNA to become a superior race, and as a result we still have Donald Trump running for president, I think the Annunaki should go back to Illyuwn and let someone more capable take over.

So there you have it.  Our alien overlords.  And if you were laughing while reading this, and thinking, "How does this person know all of this?", well, so was I.  But maybe your laugh will sound a little hollow when you ask the same question about how people know that god wants guys to grow beards and have sideburns (Leviticus 19:27).  Because a lot of the bible seems to me to be extremely detailed information about what's going on in the mind of a deity that no one has ever seen.

But that's religion, and that's different than believing in super-powerful beings who live in the sky and control our destiny, right?

Of course, right.